Thursday, May 15, 2008

Beware the Ides of May

I've administered barrels of barium to patients during my career. However, my hat goes off to the radiology dudes at Scripps Hospital, who seem to be working from a whole different part of the periodic table (about 30 places back, to be exact)...

Murrugun The Mystic Swallows first one sword,Then Three swords For Doctors at Scripps Hospital.

Just for good measure, here's the same same feat by the same guy, but recorded with visible light:

About Not Totally Rad

What does a radiologist do? Who are these rarely glimpsed and mysterious figures that float through the background of medical care?

Why would someone want to spend all of that time in medical school learning to be a Real Doctor™, and then throw it all away by becoming a radiologist?

Welcome to Not Totally Rad.

As the masthead suggests, most, but not all, of the topics discussed here will have something to do with radiology, medical imaging and imagers. Hopefully light will be shed on these matters, even if it's invisible to the naked eye.

About

The Samurai Radiologist has spent more than 20 years as a diagnostic radiologist, most of them professing at various university medical centers.
The "samurai" part is a nod to the late, great John Belushi, whose samurai skits on Saturday Night Live featured a samurai with a day job in some other field, such as dry-cleaning or a delicatessen. The plot usually gave him some hilarious job-related excuse to use his sword.
Since much of medical imaging (e.g. CT and MR) involves digital "cuts" through the body in various planes, I always hoped to someday see him portray a "samurai radiologist". I guess I'll just have to play that role myself.